Learn Hardcore French: Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous, le centre-ville est plus facile d'accès. - Since the tram arrives near our home, downtown is easier to access.

In French, when an action started in the past and continues to be true in the present, it is very common to use the present tense after depuis que.

Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous...
literally: Since the tram arrives near our place...
meaning: Since the tram started coming near our place and still does...

The idea is: there is now a tram line that currently serves your area. This is a current, ongoing situation, so French uses the present.

English often uses a past tense (“since the tram arrived”, “since they built the tram line”), but French keeps the present to show that the situation is still true now.

You could use a past tense in French in other contexts, but for an ongoing situation, present + depuis que is the normal pattern.

What is the difference between depuis and depuis que? Could I say *Depuis le tram arrive près de chez nous?

depuis is a preposition. It must be followed by a noun, pronoun, or time expression:
- depuis 2010 – since 2010
- depuis trois ans – for three years
- depuis l’arrivée du tram – since the arrival of the tram
depuis que is a conjunction. It must be followed by a full clause (subject + verb):
- depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous – since the tram comes near our place
- depuis qu’il habite ici – since he has been living here

So:

❌ *Depuis le tram arrive… is wrong (preposition directly followed by a verb clause).
✅ Depuis l’arrivée du tram, le centre-ville est plus facile d’accès.
✅ Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous, le centre-ville est plus facile d’accès.

Could we say Depuis que le tram est arrivé près de chez nous instead of Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous? What would be the difference?

Yes, you can say Depuis que le tram est arrivé près de chez nous, but the nuance changes.

Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous…
→ Focus on a regular / ongoing reality: there is now a tram service that comes near your place (it runs every day, etc.).
Depuis que le tram est arrivé près de chez nous…
→ Sounds more like a one-time event in the past: since the tram arrived (for the first time), as if you’re thinking about the moment the tram line opened.

In everyday speech about public transport, the present (le tram arrive) is more natural because it describes the current service rather than a specific first arrival.

What exactly does près de chez nous mean, and why not près de notre maison?

près de chez nous literally: near our place / near where we live
- chez
  - a person/pronoun means “at someone’s place, home, or location”:
    - chez moi – at my place
    - chez Paul – at Paul’s place
    - chez nous – at our place / where we live

This expression is very natural and slightly vague: it can mean near your house, your building, or just your general neighborhood.

près de notre maison literally: near our house
This is also correct, but it sounds more concrete and specific (physically near the house itself). Près de chez nous is more idiomatic and common in French in this kind of sentence.

So both are grammatically correct, but près de chez nous is the more typical choice.

Is le centre-ville masculine or feminine, and why is there a hyphen?

centre-ville is grammatically masculine:
- le centre-ville – the city center / downtown
- au centre-ville – in (the) city center
The hyphen shows that centre-ville is treated as a compound noun, a fixed expression meaning “city center / downtown,” not just “the center of the city” in a literal, geometric sense.

You might also see le centre ville without a hyphen in informal writing, but le centre-ville (with a hyphen) is the standard spelling.

Why do we say le centre-ville est plus facile d’accès and not just centre-ville est plus facile d’accès without le?

In French, common countable nouns almost always need an article (definite, indefinite, or partitive). Here you are talking about the specific city center of your town, so the definite article is used:

✅ Le centre-ville est plus facile d’accès. – The city center is easier to get to.

Leaving out the article (*Centre-ville est plus facile d’accès.) sounds ungrammatical in standard French, except maybe in telegraphic-style headlines or notes.

How does plus facile d’accès work grammatically? Why not use a verb like accéder?

plus facile d’accès is built like this:

facile – an adjective (“easy”)
d’accès – literally “of access / to access”, formed with de + accès

This structure adjective + de + noun is common in French to express “easy / difficult / possible to [do something]” without using a verb:

facile d’accès – easy to access / easy to get to
difficile d’accès – difficult to access
facile d’utilisation – easy to use
prêt à l’emploi – ready to use (slightly different pattern but similar idea)

Using accéder as a verb is possible, but you would phrase it differently:

✅ On accède plus facilement au centre-ville. – We can reach the city center more easily.
❌ *Le centre-ville est plus facile à accéder. – This is not idiomatic; French normally does not say facile à accéder.

So facile d’accès is a set, idiomatic expression meaning “easy to get to.”

Why is it d’accès and not de accès or de l’accès?

Two points:

de + accès → d’accès
- In French, de becomes d’ before a word starting with a vowel or mute h:
  - de eau → d’eau
  - de orange → d’orange
  - de accès → d’accès
No article: why not de l’accès?
In the expression facile d’accès, accès functions like an abstract noun describing the type of ease; we’re not talking about some specific “access” that “belongs” to something. It’s closer to saying “easy to access” than “easy of the access”.

So:

✅ facile d’accès – fixed, idiomatic, no article
de l’accès would change the meaning and sound wrong here.

Could I replace plus facile d’accès with plus accessible? Is there a nuance?

Yes, you can say:

Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous, le centre-ville est plus accessible.

This is correct and natural. The nuance:

plus accessible – a bit more compact and sometimes slightly more formal or neutral.
plus facile d’accès – a very common expression that strongly emphasises ease of getting there. It can sound a bit more vivid or descriptive in everyday speech.

In many contexts, they are interchangeable and both sound good.

Is the comma after nous required in Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous, le centre-ville est plus facile d'accès?

When a subordinate clause like Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous comes before the main clause, French normally writes a comma between them:

Depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous, le centre-ville est plus facile d'accès.

If you reverse the order, the comma is usually dropped:

Le centre-ville est plus facile d'accès depuis que le tram arrive près de chez nous.

So in the given word order (subordinate clause first), the comma is standard and expected.